Your Smile Casts a Shadow
by Scarecrowqueen
Summary: What matters is that they have needs. JackRabbit not-so-fluff.


Disclaimer: I do not own these cahracters nor do I profit.

This fic is potentially disturbing or squick-worthy for implied necrophilia, consider this fair warning

* * *

"You may not like it, but some loves can only be consummated this way"

- Ai No Kusabi

When asked, Jack always says he isn't sure when exactly it started.

(Which is a lie, Jack knew exactly when it started. And how. And probably even why, if he stopped to think about it.)

_(Jack rarely stops to think about it.)_

Bunny laughs off the question when ever it's asked. Really, what business is it of theirs anyways?

(It started, that's what mattered)

_(It hasn't ended, and that counts even more)_

Easter Sunday, 1968. Jack dances, snow swirling around him, laughing high and hysterical with a manic sort of glee. He's been alone a long time, _toolongtoolongtoolong_ but being invisible has its perks he thinks.

No rules, no limits, no boundaries-

No air, as he goes crashing back into a tree. The thick trunk catches him, shoulders pressed back tight with no give, pinned and wide-eyed like a broken butterfly on a white, white board.

The large Rabbit rants, raving and raging only inches from Jack's nose. The Rabbit see's him, touches him, hold's him still with an unfathomable strength and his breath is warm on Jack's face, warmer than he's felt maybe ever. The Rabbit is loud and wrathful and Jack can't speak, can't speak with shock and lack of air, the Rabbit's impregnable grip on his biceps might as well be a steel band around his ribs.

(Jack never has to breathe. He does, in habit, or to speak, or sigh, or laugh, or cry, but not by necessity, not to sustain life.)

It is long _(far too short)_ moments before the Rabbit tapers off. Jack has still not spoken, not moved, cause in and endless drawn out moment watching the Rabbit's breath mist the chilly air while Jack's does not, _because he does not breathe._

(Even if he did, it would not, because Jack is cold, cold to the bone, cold in the flesh and the blood that does not move, the heart that does not beat. Jack is cold, always cold, lips blue and fingertips purpled and frost in ever-shifting patterns on white bloodless skin. Jack is winter, Jack is death.)

_(Jack is as good as dead, for all he moves and speaks and lives)_

(And the Rabbit seems to have noticed)

Bunnymund would never be the first to admit he had a temper.

(He would never deny it, but admission of weakness is defeat.)

The boy is against the tree, big-eyed and placid with awe as Bunny is up in his face, livid and vicious and running off at his mouth in ways he hadn't in years, decades, millennia maybe.

(The boy the cold, still, too still, too still, and Bunny tapers off, fears for him, until he feels the trembling beneath his tightly gripping fingers.)

_(The tremble is what undoes him, what makes him shiver with blessed heat, and fearful, Bunny lets go.)_

It is weeks, months perhaps before Jack sees the Rabbit again. He knows who he is now, understands why he was angry, understands that he got off lightly.

(Understands nothing really, that moment in the drifting snow vague and undefined and burning like a hot coal in the back of his mind)

(Jack is just as surprised, just as breathless when without warning, the earth falls out from under him.)

Bunny doesn't find it hard to track the boy down.

(Follow the snow, follow the ice, follow the pale slip of a child leaving trails of cold around the world, gentle patterns of frost on the ground spread by the high arches of his thin feet.)

Bringing him to the warren is the work of a moment, opening a tunnel beneath the small body, yanking the boy into Bunny's whip-strong arms. The slide to the warren is a fantastical mad dash through root and soil as always, traveling lightning-fast through well know pathways to home.

(The boy shrieks once or twice, whooping in startled joy in Bunny's arms.)

Arriving at the warren, Bunny dumps his charge ungracefully onto a grassy knoll. The boy roll ass over teakettle in the green, chest heaving with delighted laughter. He stills soon enough, watching the towering figure hovering over him. Bunny watches too, watches as the boy settles, a milk-white splash on the rich viridian velvet he lies on.

Jack calms, lets himself relax, going limp before his watcher. The Rabbit is large and overwhelming above him, lean powerful limbs just this side of tense to be ready, ready for anything, any motion, any twitch. This Rabbit is no prey, this is a hunter, a fighter, a warrior; no one Jack could compete against should he deign the try.

(Jack would never try, could never, would never want to. Jack wants to be right where he is, captured and helpless and Jack imagines the animal can smell him, could take him into his lungs and hold him there in a warmwarm/tighttight embrace, and Jack wantswantswants.)

_(Jack waits, holds his breath, quiet as a mouse, still as death, cold as the grave)_

Bunny see's it all, the splay of gangly limbs, the spray of dark eyelashes from nearly-closed eyelids on a smooth cheek, the slackness of the boy's wet mouth, lips parted and inviting. Bunny takes a step closer, the boy's fingers twitch in the long grass and his head tips slightly back, baring his throat in submission, eyes slipping fully shut.

(The boy's chest does not move, Bunny can hear no breath, no heartbeat, and the body he'd held in his arms moments before was as cold as the ice the child commands. Bunny steps closer again. Again. Again.)

_(Bunny's heart pounds doubletime, fast enough for two, racing and speeding and flying against his ribs and he reaches out one lone, single, solitary hand, slowlyslowlyslowly_

_he touches_

_the boy's_

_face)_

People ask Jack all the time how it started, how it came to be. Why? They will ask. When?

It does not matter, Jack will say. It happened, it still happens, it is him and I and us together. It is, and It will continue to be, why does how or when or where or why matter?

(Jack will never tell them about the first time, that long exhalation of ecstasy on the wet earth of the Warren, Bunny's lithe body all heat and power above him, over him, between his thighs, damp fur, the danger of blunt claws on his delicate skin, the taste of warm animal and stars behind his eyelids and BunnyBunnyBunny surrounding him and over him and inside him, touching every lost lonely place Jack had to offer.)

(Bunny will never tell them about the first time, about the boy that smiled, smiled and smiled with eyes closed and made the softest tiniest noises you could only just hear, who was held down and stayed down and barely moved save for how he was positioned, like some empty and willing vessel for Bunny to take and take and take until he couldn't anymore, until the pleasure was too much and he clutched the child to him, snuffling into his hair, the boy like a cold, still, doll.)

(What matters is that they have needs. They have needs and desires and they understand, and only they could understand, and if someday, one day they looked at each other and realized that maybe they liked each other too, then that is their business.

And that is what matters.)

_(Nothing else ever could)_


End file.
